The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a peer-assisted study session (PASS) program for a large class of Bachelor of Health Science (Paramedic) students. This cohort was made up predominantly of mature aged students who have not undertaken any study for many years. Within a bioscience first-year core subject, student…

Objectives: To test the potential impact of a critical curriculum on psychiatric medications designed for child welfare workers. Method: In a quasiexperimental, longitudinal study, the monthly proportion of medicated foster children and the average number of prescriptions per medicated child at Agency 1 (669 clients) exposed to the…

The methods of evaluating teacher preparation programs are becoming increasingly more reliant on student test data. These test data driven formats, however, are not appropriate for small colleges. Small colleges are currently left off the Tennessee Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training Programs because the colleges did not produce…

Closing the achievement gap has been a national conversation for several decades and a priority for educators and researchers. By looking closely at one school which is showing exceptional success with closing the achievement gap for low income students and English language learners, this study seeks to understand how school personnel and parents…

KIPP Delta College Preparatory School (KIPP: DCPS), an open-enrollment charter school, opened in 2002 in Helena, Arkansas. Since its opening, KIPP: DCPS students have consistently outperformed their peers in the Helena/West Helena School district, and moreover, recent test scores suggest that white students and minority students are achieving at…

In order to prepare new online students to be successful in the virtual classroom, many institutions opt to provide them with an orientation course. Academic institutions must understand the needs of their students in order to develop an orientation course that is best suited to prepare their students for success. In this study, online graduate…

This study focused on the evaluation of the English as a Second Language (ESL) program provided to the English Language Learners (ELLs) in elementary and middle schools in one local school district. The study evaluated two factors: model of service provided and teacher effectiveness. The models of service provided were a push-in model and a…

Asian Americans, as a group, are not as civically engaged as might be expected given their rapid growth in population and high average levels of education and income. The undergraduate years are a critical period in which this "civic engagement gap" could be addressed given the dramatic growth in Asian American college students and…

This study examined the critical aspects of oversight that superintendents must employ to improve instruction. It was an analysis of superintendents as instructional leaders. In this study, we looked at four school district superintendents who have demonstrated instructionally effective school districts. The study was based on a three-year period,…

The last two decades have witnessed a vast expansion in the use of education data to improve classroom instruction and raise student achievement. Schools and districts face important challenges in implementing increased data use for instructional improvement. One key challenge is the need for teachers and administrators to have "data…

As global demands for workers in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields persist, there are increased opportunities for historically underrepresented African-American and Latino youth to fill STEM career pipelines. African-American and Latino youth have long faced disproportionately high unemployment rates. Joblessness has been…

The study reviewed in this paper examined the impact of "Collaborative Strategic Reading" ("CSR"), a set of instructional strategies used to build reading proficiency, on the reading comprehension of fifth-grade students. The analysis included 1,355 students from 74 social studies classrooms within 26 linguistically diverse…

In 2009, Vanderbilt University's Peabody Research Institute, with the assistance of the Tennessee Department of Education's Division of Curriculum and Instruction, initiated a rigorous, independent evaluation of the state's Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN- VPK). TN-VPK is a full-day prekindergarten program for four-year-old children expected…

The recommendations and questions in this report enumerate key factors that may help a department answer the most important question about a graduate program: does it give its students the time and resources necessary to complete their degrees in a timely fashion? This document offers best practices in seven general areas for improving the…

Training and technical assistance programs for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have emerged in many states as educators, administrators, and institutions of higher education attempt to address the increasing needs for enhancing the knowledge and skills of educators and disseminating the ever-growing knowledge of educational practices. This report…